Time flies: Massive Attack return and bring Tom Waits with them

If there's one thing we have learned from Massive Attack's new single is that Tom Waits loves flies.

Boots On The Ground is Massive Attack's first new single in ages. It's a dimly-lit, seething electronic stomp that pours ire on the militaristic and fascistic state of US geopolitics.

The track features the vocals of Tom Waits. Obviously, he’s best known as the serial killer bunny owner in the 2012 film Seven Psychopaths. Apparently, he’s done some music too. His voice is brilliantly gruff: a tipper truck of gravel poured into Massive’s moody quagmire.

This is proper political. When “federal pricks” is one of the more polite lyrics, you know things have got bad.

Says Robert Del Naja: “Across the Western hemisphere, state authoritarianism and the militarisation of police forces are fusing again with neofascist politics… this track contains pulses of callous impulse and abandoned mind.”

Very poetic but also absolutely furious. It’s good to have the Attack chaps back.

Del Naja was arrested in Trafalgar Square last week after showing support for Palestine Action. The government has now arrested thousands of people on similar grounds, including people with disabilities and pensioners. The wrong placard, the wrong t-shirt, but it’s alright to pour cash into genocidal bombing campaigns. This isn’t a political blog, but jeez, I can see why Massive Attack are so narked.

The forthcoming 12-inch of Boots On The Ground will feature a spoken word track called The Fly. It is… well, I’ll let Tom Waits explain.

“Man’s folly of fiascos is a feast for the flies. Hence, the b-side of Massive Attack’s upcoming 12-inch The Fly features my appreciation for the winged nuisance.”

Very poetic but also absolutely off-the-chain. I never knew how much Tom Waits loves flies. Rabbits, maybe, what with all those rabbits he owned when he was a psychopath. But flies?

As I kid, I used to befriend spiders on the way to school. I gave them names and counted their legs to make sure everything was in order. No, really. I wonder if Waits does the same with houseflies.

Maybe I'm wrong and it's a cover of U2’s leather-and-shades reinvention The Fly. That would be a disappointment. Or the best thing ever. I can't decide.

Watch the video for Boots On The Ground.

Further Fats: Massive Attack got soul but Ceephax got swing(ing lampshades) (2010)

Further Fats: Does Donald Trump listen to music? (2017)

A throat-pawing, arm-wrestling, mallet-bashing preview of 2009 (part one)

The reverberating acid begins as a hum, the kind of hum that settles on your tummy, but it rises and rises with ferocity, up your chest, until a miffed guitar riff paws at your thoat.

And a robot voice announces: "WE ARE THE PRODIGY."

And so to 2009, and no prizes for guessing electronic music's most anticipated release of this year.

Three storming albums (Experience, Jilted Generation, Fat Of The Land). Then there was the Album-Five-Years-Ago-That-No-One-Really-Remembers-Coz-Everyone-Still-Blithers-On-About-Smack-My-Bitch-Up-Which-Is-12-Years-Old-Yes-I-Know-Get-Over-It. I don't think that was the exact title.

Anyhoo, watch out for the Prodigy's new LP, Invaders Must Die, in March.

Allow that, my sweet reader, to be an introduction to my preview of some other albums that will caress our earlobes in 2009.

My guide is in no way comprehensive, nor is it even accurate. I have probably missed a number of major titles, and quite frankly 99% of sales in '09 will be X-Factor related, so it's all an exercise in futility.

January.

The remnants of Add N To X have teamed up with space rockers Fuxa for a looping joy of a single Add N To Fu(x)a. I hope it's a taste of more to come from this pair.

Following his well-received album Just A Souvenir, Squarepusher will release an EP of "dancefloor psychedelia" called Numbers Lucent. If the Square one isn't nominated for the next Mercury Music Prize, I'll eat my slipmats.

The shoe-collecting Telefon Tel Aviv will flop out their first full-length offering for five years. When Immolate Yourself hits, it could be one of the best discs of the year.

February.

The Eft will waft its way from Samandtheplants, while Susumu Yokota - whose hypnotic The Boy And The Tree album was used liberally on Sunday's Top Gear Vietnam special - will explore a more vocal sound for his new Mother LP.

Not to be outdone by the Prodigy, Massive Attack will attempt a monumental return with the provisionally-titled Weather Underground. The double-album of "gothic soul" is pretty much shrouded in hushness, but it is rumoured by the rumour mill that Tom Waits will feature. That's even cooler than Hot Chip's single with Robert Wyatt a couple of months back.

If the Prodigy and Massive Attack had an arm wrestle, who would win? Please discuss.

Finally for February, there's Harmonic 313's When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence, but I've already covered this so I ought to hush my mouth.

Next?

In the second half of my preview, I will cover March, then skip the rest of the year really quickly as though I don't care. I do care, but you try getting accurate release information six months in advance.

I'll also reveal the artist I'm positively frothing at the mouth over for 2009. A clue? He's a genre-buster from Glasgow and he uses the word "shite" a lot.